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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Has this ever happened to you?

I carpool with my hubby and three days a week he works an hour later. I amuse myself in the car with knitting or reading. As it happens yesterday I was intense on finishing this sock so I could wear them today. Darn if I didn't break the needle of these DPN's.

I bought the needles last summer to knit my first pair of socks on. Admittedly I'm not completely distraught as I really wanted new ones and now I can get them.

I tried knitting with them and it's working so far. I had already turned the heel and am in the home stretch at least.



Sunday, September 23, 2007

Home Ownership

If you are ever lucky enough to own a home of your own - beware - improvements can take your hard earned money and your sanity.

A few weeks ago I posted I had completed one coat of paint on the kitchen walls. The ceiling is now painted as well. The entire room still needs a second coat of paint. Cool thing is we will probably get away with one gallon for the entire room! Aside from that, hubby and I went shopping today for kitchen accessories. It made us giddy.

We bought a bathroom soap dispenser to house the dish soap. Try to ignore the glass to the left of it. That is where we currently house our cell phone chargers - hideous I know.

Now, let me tell you how excited I can get about a garbage can. It has one of those nifty little foot pedals so you don't have to actually touch the lid. Also, when it closes, it goes slowly so as not to harm your ears with the ringing of a slamming garbage lid. Simple minds...simple pleasures.

The last thing we are going to do (before new cabinets and counter tops in a year) is stainless switch plate and outlet covers. We are also going to turn the dead space over the cabinets on the sink side in to wine storage with criss - crossed pieces of wood painted in the wall color so it blends in.
Bed, Bath & Beyond is almost the happiest place on earth - second only to Home Depot!

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Getting in to the spirit

Our wrap party for the film is going to be a costume party since the film is set in October. Since I am the costume designer for the film I suppose I need to have a stellar costume. I have always wanted to be a witch and never gotten the chance so I came up with an original twist (I hope) on a traditional costume.

Below are photos as a teaser to my costume. The evil jester is part of Chris costume. I'm going to make a black dress with a petticoat of red silk and black netting that looks like spider webs. Black and red striped over the knee socks that I think I am going to knit myself, black witches shoes with big silver buckles and a choker that looks like a spider web. I am also going to attach a spider from the tip of my witches hat. I even bought a black and red wig!


My wig kinds of reminds me of cherry coke or something because of the color.

Not a great photo as far as color representation (the red looks too pink). The netting is the best I could find to represent spider webs. This is going to be edging on my petticoat and I will sew some fake plastic spiders to it so I hope it will look cool.



Saturday, September 15, 2007

Interurban Trail

Today we took our bikes out to test drive the Interurban Trail they have been constructing in our area. It's nicer that riding on sidewalks. We saw a lot of bikers, runners and dog walkers today. But boy, my but could use a break! We stopped at Central Market, our halfway point to get refreshments.
Chris, Alex and Connor on the trail.

Alex


Connor


Chris


Friday, September 14, 2007

Two Celebrities One Day

My company occasionally has musicians perform at our offices. We do in store music systems and music programming for large retail establishments. If you have ever been in a Starbucks, Old Navy, Steve & Barry's or Anthropologie (to name but a few) then you have heard our work.

Anyway, Michelle Shocked performed accoustically for us today. She has been in the music biz for 20 + years and has an absolutely wonderful voice. It was a thrill to meet her.

The other big news is I saw the Yarn Harlot! I was unfortunately not organized enough to purchase a copy of her new book in order to get it signed by her and I did not meet her in person. She was wonderful to listen to for an hour and next time she is here rest assured I will be more prepared! The photo below is the best I could get of her since she was standing in front of a black curtain which sucked the light from all my photos.

She of course took her sock photo which I desperately wanted to do of her but it was all I could do just to snap a photo of her that I could actually see.


I have temporarily put aside my Lady E in favor of an easy beginner sock pattern I could knit on and not concentrate too hard on while I listened to Stephanie and chatted with my new friends at the North End Knitters. I will be back with Lady E momentarily.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Let's Go Fly A Kite

View of Mt. Rainier and Lake Washington from Magnuson park kite hill in Seattle.


After working on the film until early this morning my hubby and I finally tumbled in to bed at 5:30 AM, way later than expected. We slept most of the day and didn't really get out of bed until 4:00. Needless to say I did not paint the ceiling or get a second coat in the kitchen at all. That will be my after work project for this week.

There is a great park that used to be a naval base near the University of Washington. We loaded the kids and the dog in to the car and went there this afternoon. The weather was really nice and true to Indian Summer fashion the wind was a warm one. The park has a HUGE off leash area for dogs with a really generous fenced area just for small/shy dogs which BJ loves to run around in. There is also a kite flying hill.

There were Jazz musicians playing at the park today and we could hear them from the dog area. All in all, a very satisfying end to a late night. We finished it off with pizza from Pagliacci and a movie.

Chris and BJ on the kite hill.

Connor and his triangle kite.

Alex and her Dragon kite.

Saturday, September 8, 2007

A Girl and her Paint Brush

Mind you this is ONE coat of the three I will probably need to finish my kitchen and I have not painted the ceiling yet. The color is Pomegranite by Ralph Lauren.

The cabinets are not getting painted because I think that would be too much red and we are getting new cabinets and granite (I hope) counter tops next year. The cabinet color used to be the wall color (and still is in most of my house - but I am changing it), it really was a light mocha color...really. Just compared to the red it looks like nothing.

The black door you see in the hallway through the archway is going to be our headboard in our bedroom (obviously sitting lengthwise on the wall). We will get to it eventually.
Home improvements are fun but I am bushed!

Tier 1


I have completed tier 1 so far. I know, not much progress. I was so excited to complete this and I really wanted to show something after my struggle with the yarn purchase. I also bought Addi Turbo circular needles to knit this on.
It kind of looks like a bunch of flags strung together. I am a little further than this photo shows. I have started Tier 2 and done the left triangle which "straightens" out the curl of the yarn and makes a nice corner.
I am a little stuck on the rectangles. Technically I have two Lady E's going right now. I have a practise Lady E so I can make sure I understand what I am knitting before I do it for real on the real Lady E. Being a relatively new knitter I don't want to keep ripping out my nice yarn.
The color the ball started with is a teal/turquoise, then it went to green and black and now I am in to some grey. There is also some lime green and various shades of blue and green in the yarn.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

I bit the bullet

My previous venture in to Lady E yarn resulted in a quite lovely stash made up of merino wool, angora and silk. I ordered several colors and then decided my original idea was not going to work.

So, I bit the bullet and bought 11 skeins of Noro Silk Garden in colorway 213. I'm pretty sure I will be happy with the end result. I just can't wait to throw this on the needles tonight!

As the weather get's colder I know I am going to enjoy wearing this!


Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Glorious Yarn for Lady E

I have been wanting to make a Lady E for a few months now. I have not been knitting for a long time but have been sewing for 20 + years. Most of my knitting projects consist of socks and gloves. I have yet to make a sweater which I really want to do.

Behold, the colors I thought I was going to use for my Lady E. I ordered from KnitPicks and the colors are Lettuce (lighter green), Barn Red, Orange, Chocolate and Olive (darker green) in the Andean Silk yarn which is 55% Alpaca, 23% Silk & 22% Merino Wool.



I'm super excited to get started but I will need to exchange these fine colors for something that has colors through the skein. I have no idea what I was thinking. A bit over eager I guess. I will try to use this for something else or exchange for the yarn I want for this project.
I am thinking this will be a great project because it would take me a little while and if I got bored with it I could switch off with other projects.
Most people I have seen make this wrap like Jenn and Jessica have used yarn in a colorway that is several colors on a skein of yarn. That is what I am looking for.
Keep checking in to see how I progress!


Monday, September 3, 2007

Photo Fun

We have had our digital camera for a year and I just started playing with other features on it such as sepia and black & white options.

I really love this photo of my hubby. He said it looked like an album cover and I was thinking the same thing. This was taken at Mukilteo lighthouse park.


Here I am with the dog. I am not too fond of photos of myself. My hubby insisted on taking this one. We are being sneeky.


This is Bon Jovi (BJ or Jovi for short) and we did not name him that. He came with his name and he was used to it so we kept it that way. He is the sweetest, cutest, wiggliest thing I have ever had! We love him to death!


This is my bonus daughter, Alex staring off in to space. She does that a lot but it's probably because she is hatching some new thing to create.


This is my bonus son, Connor contemplating a cup of Starbucks coffee. He loves coffee and I keep trying to tell him it will stunt his growth.







Rules

I don't know about many of you but my husband and I live in a condo. Normally the rules and regulations around these parts are fine with us. Quiet hours, where to put the garbage (garbage vs. actual recyle and boxes), etc.

We recently received a notice in the mail about kids roller blading or skateboarding in the parking lot. Bicycle riding is OK but not those other two forms of childhood activities. Apparently some one in our community doesn't like kids. I find it fascinating that one form of play is acceptable and others are not.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

American Gothic

Filming this weekend went pretty well for The Book of Zombie. We actually lucked out...again. A neighborhood cat wandered in to the back door of my parents house (where we were filming - with their permission of course). We really needed a live cat for Act 1 and we were able to get a shot of her running out the front door. It was too perfect because the fake cat we ordered was white as well. Funny things is, the cat kept coming back - even the next night! Thank you super nice neighbor kitty, you saved us!


My bonus kids wanted to be zombies. check out this years Christmas photo "American Gothic - Zombie Style"

There is nothing like a grilled burger at 3 AM!